Office of the Privacy Commissioner | Case Note 256547 [2015] NZ PrivCmr 4 : Man complains he received spam emails after council published his submission online
A man complained that he received spam emails because a Resource Management Act (RMA) submission he made on a proposed district plan was published on a council website with his email address.
The man said he guarded his email address closely and the spam emails began after his submission was posted online.
We sought an explanation from the Council about why the submissions were published online and whether or not individuals were informed that their submissions would be published.
The complaint raised issues under principles 3 and 11 of the Privacy Act. These principles deal with what an individual should be told when their information is collected and whether it can be disclosed.
The Council explained that under the RMA, it is required to make a summary of submissions available to the public. This is why all the submissions it received were published on its website. The RMA also specifies a form that the Council has to provide to submitters that asks for certain personal information.
To ensure completeness and transparency throughout the process, the Council placed the full content of all original submissions on its website. It did this so that all interested parties could access the source documents rather than rely on the Council’s summary of submissions.
The Council said its online submission process required the submitter to accept its terms and conditions for online submissions. These terms include an acknowledgement and waiver that personal information disclosed when making an online submission would be made public.
All submissions, irrespective of mode of submission, were placed on its website.
We informed the man that by accepting these terms, he had consented to the Council publishing his information. Under these circumstances, we took the view that the Council had not breached principles 3 and 11 of the Privacy Act. After further discussion with the Council, it agreed to remove the man’s email address from the documents and republish. He was satisfied with that outcome and we closed the complaint.
February 2015
Disclosure of personal information – Resource Management Act – disclosure of email address – no interference with privacy – principles 3 and 11